


Remembering Childhood Lessons

by afteriwake



Series: In So Few Words [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adultery, Aftermath, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Fights, POV Sally Donovan, Sally's Past, Undecided Relationship(s), Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 10:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had seen what being in love with a married man had done to her mother and vowed not to go down that road herself, and yet here she was, madly in love with Anderson. But what if he couldn't give her what she wanted? Will she do what her mother did, or would she leave and never look back?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembering Childhood Lessons

**Author's Note:**

> An answer to a sherlockmas Afterglow Fest prompt ("he can never be that for you"). I've tried writing Anderson/Sally in a more positive light, exploring the complexities of their relationship, and this was another side I wanted to explore.

She knew it had been a bad idea to get involved with a married man. Her mother had done it, and it had brought nothing but heartache for her and misery onto the household. Growing up, Sally knew her father was married to someone else, that her father wanted no part in raising her. When she was old enough to understand, she vowed she would never fall in love with a married man. She vowed it, and she held onto that vow for so many years that it was just second nature to her.

And then she met Philip Anderson.

He seemed so different from the other Yarders. He actually amused her, made her laugh, even when she was in one of her sour moods. He could bring a smile to her face with little effort. And at first they were simply friends, and she was content. After all, she was a firm believer that men and women could be friends, and that a single woman could be friends with a married man and temptation wouldn’t rear its ugly head. She believed it to the core of her being.

She didn’t remember who kissed who first. All she remembered was there had been a bad case, and it wasn’t just because Sherlock Holmes had been involved. Any case that dealt with a murdered child was hard, and this case had three of them. And not only were they murdered, but the killer had took pleasure in desecrating the bodies. She had seen so much that not much made her ill, but that crime scene had been the first in years to cause her to bolt out the door and lose her lunch away from the crime scene.

Philip had been the tech on that case, and he too had been horrified by what he had seen. The entire team went out to a pub to get pissed and pray that they didn’t dream about the mutilated bodies when they went to sleep that night. The two of them stayed out late, stayed until the pub closed. Neither of them wanted to go home that night, Philip to his wife who didn’t understand and her to an empty flat which was more a place to rest her head than a home. As they stumbled out into the night the kiss happened, and then it was on the way to a hotel for a night of mind-blowing passion and the comfort they could offer each other.

That was the start of it all. Now she was at a crossroads. She wanted him, wanted him more than she’d wanted any other man before. She wanted to stop sneaking around, to have a real and true relationship with him. She wanted it so bad she ached. And he had just filed for divorce. Said the guilt had worn on him, that it was best if he let his wife go and be happy with someone else. So now, they could make a real go of it. They could try and have the relationship she wanted.

But then there was tonight. He had said he needed time, needed space. And in the back of her mind she could understand that, she could accept it and she could see why he would need it. But she was being greedy tonight, and she wanted him on her terms. And he just couldn’t do it, not right now. In the back of her mind she wondered if he ever could. She wondered if what they had was simply a fling for him, and after his divorce was final and he was a free man if he’d just leave her in the dust and go to something better.

She left him, standing in his rented flat with his hands in the air, with anger in their voices. She left and she ran. If he couldn’t be what she wanted, why should she put herself what she saw her mother go through? Why should she punish herself? Why should she pretend that she was happy with what they had now when she really wasn’t? She shouldn’t, and so she ran away. She would remember now, remember the lesson she had been taught when she was young: it was better to be on your own than give everything up for love that didn’t love you back. She would remember that lesson, and this time she’d hold it close and never break that vow again.


End file.
